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UPDATE: @GovernorPerry spokeswoman issues response on Twitter block of some journalists: ‘He manages it as he likes.’

UPDATE at 5:40 p.m. Monday: So here is the official response from Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger: “Yes, it is the governor’s personal account, so he manages it as he likes. He uses non-state resources.”

So there you have it. I suppose.

Should note that I posed four pretty specific questions to the governor’s office:

1) Why have I been blocked from following the governor on Twitter?
2) Does the governor have sole control of his @GovernorPerry account? Is he the person who decides who to block?
3) Why does the governor block some journalists and not others? For instance, several of my DMN colleagues follow him. How many journalists does he block, and what is his criteria for doing so?
4) Lastly, does the governor tweet from state-owned computers or smart phones?

Also worth noting that this thing has taken on a life of its own. Read about it at AllTwitter here. At Poynter here. At TPM here. At the Washington Post here.

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UPDATE at 4:13 p.m. Monday: Well, this isn’t much of an update, but a person in the governor’s press office contacted me via e-mail earlier this afternoon with a question about my questions. So I’ll update with a new post as soon as I receive any answers.

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UPDATE at 11:32 a.m. Monday: I’ve put in a couple more calls to Gov. Perry’s office and still haven’t heard back.

Also, blogger Rachel Farris (@MeanRachel) points out here that this isn’t the first example of Perry blocking Twitter followers.

The issue was also described — although not in reference to reporters — by Omar Gallaga (@omarg) of the Austin American-Statesman here last October.

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An odd message came up when I recently tried to follow Gov. Rick Perry (@GovernorPerry) on Twitter:

“Could not follow user: You have been blocked from following this account at the request of the user.”

That surprised me (@tombenning) a bit — and gave me a good chuckle.

For starters, I didn’t know it was possible to block people from following you. Secondly, Perry has more than 35,000 followers. And lastly, several of my Dallas Morning News colleagues already follow Perry.

I put in a call to the governor’s press office, where Ashton Morgan told me the governor has sole control of his personal Twitter account. She added that she would try and get an answer as to why he blocked me.

This not being a pressing issue — the governor is a busy man, after all — I gave them a few days to respond. I had planned to follow up Monday.

But then I saw the following tweet earlier today from Bud Kennedy of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

“@budkennedy: Is it just me or has @GovernorPerry also blocked you from following him on Twitter? Hurt that I’ll miss text on his next gig with Ted Nugent”

And then this from KRLD’s Scott Braddock:

“@scottbraddock: How many members of the Texas media are blocked from following @GovernorPerry on Twitter?”

Now that I know it’s not just me, I’m even more curious to get an answer from Perry’s office.

Maybe the better approach would be: “@GovernorPerry, what’s the deal?”

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The blog for the Dallas Morning News politics team tracks Dallas Fort Worth area, Texas and national campaigns.